


How you remind me

by ShariDeschain



Category: The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-07
Updated: 2014-12-07
Packaged: 2018-02-28 13:41:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2734670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShariDeschain/pseuds/ShariDeschain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[TVD S5/TO S1] Stefan leaves Mystic Falls on his own and Rebekah leaves New Orleans with Hope. Somewhere around the world their paths cross.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How you remind me

They run into each other in the strangest place they could've possibly imagined: in line at a supermarket checkout stand.

Rebekah's pushing the shopping cart with one hand and trying to lull a crying Hope with the other, she's confused and almost in panic, and when she takes out the wallet from her purse, it just _explodes_ and a waterfall of money floods the counter.

There are pennies and nickels and quarters rolling all over the desk, on the floor, on the cart, _everywhere_ , and she feels like crying too. Things like this are not supposed to happen to her. She's a vampire, for god's sake. But she's also a full time over protective auntie at her first encounter with a newborn and no help whatsoever, and she's really trying to do her best but everything is so new to her as much as it is for her niece, half of the time she doesn't really know what she's doing and she's always _so tired_.

Being a parent? Wonderful thing. Terrifying, too.

While she contemplates her failure at multitasking, the man behind her starts to pick up her money. She can barely see him from the corner of her eye, but she immediately mutters a thanks, then she smiles apologetically at the cashier, snatch away a penny from Hope's little hand before she could even think to eat it, and starts picking up the coins by herself too.

It's only when she turns around to take the money that the stranger is holding out for her that she realizes he's not a stranger at all.

And Stefan's expression would be comical if she didn't know that it was the mirror of her own.

“What the-”, they say at the same time, but Hope starts to cry again and everything else disappears from Rebekah's mind.

She does her best to shush her, then she turns to Stefan again.

“Would you mind?”, she asks, nodding at the still unpaid groceries.

“Sure”, he answers, then he frowns. “I mean, no. I mean... yeah, I got it”

He pays, then he put everything in the bags and carries them all the way to her car.

After placing Hope in the child seat and the groceries in the trunk, they just stand there for a moment, surrounded by a silence full of obvious questions that neither of them want to ask and imaginary answers that neither of them want to give.

“I should-”

“Would you-”

Half sentences at the same time again. It shouldn't be so difficult, really.

“I need a drink”, she says then.

“Yeah. Yeah, me too.”

That's how it begins.

 

*

 

They drink hot cocoa from smurf cups, and they don't even try to make it look cool.

“I can't believe it.”

“Well, they were on sale and Hope likes them.”

“No, I mean I can't believe that you don't have alcohol in your house.”

"Oh, shut up."

She hits him but she's grinning. He smiles back, and she remembers a time when that smile made her feel all fuzzy inside. Now it just makes her sad because now she knows better than then, and she recognizes a broken thing when she sees it.

The house is quiet around them. The windows are open and the sunlight fills the kitchen, almost shining on the white furniture. In the next room Hope's sleeping in her crib, a carrion still playing in the background to sweeten her dreams.

"You want to tell me what's wrong?"

Stefan plays with his smurf cup, eyes fixed on the table. He opens his mouth a couple of time, and she waits for a lie or a change of topic.

Instead he says the truth.

"Damon is dead."

 

*

 

She knows. She knows all of it and all too well. 

She remembers.

( _Kol's angry smile and all the times he teased, insulted and hurt her. And Elijah's eyes when he told her that Kol was dead._ )

( _The fear, the anger, the pain for all the times Niklaus ruined her life. And Nik's body burning in front oh her while she could do nothing to save him._ )

There are people you love and people you hate. 

And then there's family.

( _After leaving New Orleans, the first time she answered the phone just to hear her brother's voice on the other end of the line, she immediately hanged up. Then he called again, so she threw away the phone, packed her bags and left the city. No big deal anyway: there was no magic left in Chicago._

_For a while she thought about Europe, but she was sick of being nostalgic, she wanted something new. Africa, maybe. Or Japan. She'd never been in Japan._

_She didn't buy a new phone, but he found her again, and after three days there were messages waiting for her on every desk of every hotel in which she stayed._

_She panicked. She was sure that Klaus wanted her back, and why not? He'd never been a forgiving man, not really, and sure as hell he changed his mind more often than not._

_It took a great deal of time and drinks before she eventually realized the possibility that there could've been other reasons for those obsessive calls._

_So she put two more drinks between her and full consciousness and then she called him back._

_And Klaus must have somewhat felt her hesitations because the first words he said to her were also the only words that could've convinced her not to jump right away on the first plane for Tokyo._

_“I need you, sister”, he said._

_So she drove back home._ )

He doesn't need to say anything.

She knows.

 

*

 

Sex was always great with Stefan, Rebekah knows that much.

They used to fuck for so many reasons: for fun, for revenge, for something they never called love. They fucked to celebrate, to make a scandal, to forget the present, to wash away the anger, to push away someone else, to feel someone close enough to kick away the loneliness for a few hours.

She doesn't know why they're fucking now.

He's lost and empty and _wrong_ while she's where she always dreamed to be, she's happy and free.

But Stefan touches her like she's a sacred thing and for the first time since Chicago she's sure that he sees her and only her. There's no other woman behind his eyes (there's _nothing at all_ behind his eyes) but in that moment he wants her, he needs her, and somehow she knows that this is the most important thing that has happened to him lately. 

So Rebekah let him stay.

 

*

 

She never asks about Mystic Falls, about Elena, Caroline, and all the others. She knows Matt's safe, and that's the only information she needs.

In return he never asks about New Orleans, about her brothers, Marcel, and all the shit they've gone through. He doesn't care.

He never tells her how Damon died, or what he tried to do before giving up on getting him back.

She never tells him how she made peace with Klaus, or what she tried to do before that.

It's like they never had friends or a family, and god, it sounds so wrong, but it feels good.

A week after their casual encounter he moves in with her. Soon enough they go to the supermarket together, he fixes leaking pipes, works on her car in the weekends and learns how to change diapers in the meanwhile.

If it feels even a little bit like having a new family, neither of them say anything out loud.

What they have is no love story, and they better remember that.

 

*

 

At first Stefan felt really uncomfortable around Hope because he had never been around a baby before. For weeks Rebekah had seen true fear in his eyes every time she asked him to hold, feed or bath her. It was really amusing to watch.

Now he plays with her like he had never done anything else in his life.

Sitting on a park bench, she studies him with a smile while he kneels in the fresh grass with Hope in his lap and tries to teach her how to write by putting a stick in her little hand and helping her draw crooked letters on the ground. 

For a couple of minutes they both seem very focused on the task, but soon enough Hope predictably decides that she much prefers to put the stick in her mouth rather than write with it.

Stefan looks mortified, and Rebekah laughs until she feels the tears on the corners of her eyes.

“There's nothing funny”, he scolds her. “I believe that's pretty much unhygienic.”

But Hope's laughing too, now, in her overwhelming gurgling way, so Stefan can do nothing but smile and throw the stick away.

 

*

 

It's early. It's so early that Rebekah refuses to think of it as morning. It's still night and she wants to sleep.

But next to her Stefan is awake, and she can feel his broodiness even if she's facing his back.

“Stop that.”

He doesn't reply.

She knows he's still mourning. There's a hole in his chest and there's no way to fill it, no matter how hard he tries. How hard _they_ try.

At night another life come backs knocking at his heart: memory of another house, another woman, another family. 

It happens to her too, and she knows there's no way to fight it.

So she hugs him from the back, kisses him on the shoulder and just let him be.

 

*

 

“Who would've thought it would end up like this? Us, I mean.”

It's almost Christmas, they're sitting on the porch, sipping eggnog from their usual smurf cups, while Hope plays with her stuffed reindeer on the wooden floor at their feet. 

“I honestly expected more blood”, Stefan agrees. “And less children.”

“And a lot of corpses.”

“Yes, definitely.”

Paul The Chatty Neighbour waves his hand from the other side of the street, and Rebekah waves her hand back at him.

“It's nice, though.”

“We're in a middle-class nightmare.”

“Well, it could be worst.”

“Yeah, we could be married.”

Rebekah punches him on the shoulder and he laughs, loud and clear.

The sunset is close, and once the sun sets all the houses around them start to glow with Christmas lights. Everything is yellow and green and red and blue, and with Hope in her arms, Rebekah sees the reflections of all those colours in her little girl's wide eyes. She's so amazed and it's so beautiful to watch her.

And Rebekah knows that nothing of this is hers to keep, not Hope, not Stefan, not this strange family of orphans they created, but for now she holds her niece closer to her chest while her kinda-boyfriend's finger are intertwined with hers, so, for now, she really, really doesn't care.

**Author's Note:**

> \- I stopped watching TVD towards the end of season 5 because to me it was really disappointing and almost painful to watch. I've read spoiler here and there so I know that in season 6 Stefan left Mystic Falls to get a new life and tbh that's what I'd want for him. Except, of course, that I'd never want him to go back. On the other hand I still watch TO and I enjoy it really much. I've always loved Rebekah, and Stebekah is one of my favourite ship. So yeah, I saw the opportunity to put them together, give them a child and throw domestic fluff at them, and I took it. Bite me.
> 
> \- Written for the WRPG challenge @ maridichallenge


End file.
